NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M 3GB graphics with Optimus???

Hey all,
Im going to be purchasing a dell X17, and a friend of mine suggested not getting some features i wanted and told me to pay 150$ extra to get the upgraded vid card NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M 3GB graphics with Optimus

The one that is standard is NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 550M 1GB graphics with Optimus

In my mind an upgrade of 150 to a vid card should provide substantial improvements.

Im having trouble finding benchmarks and stuff on the difference in the cards. Im not very experienced in vid cards either... and was simply looking for other peoples opinions. i cant beleive this has dedicated 3GB, so any info would be useful. Thanks

 

If you have the money to spare, why not ._. If you're on a strict budget, then I don't think so. Who cares if it's 3GB dedicated memory. 1GB is plenty enough for whatever we need now :x

Not exactly sure about performance difference but GT 555M is about as strong as the old 9800M GTX isn't it? ._.

 

What was his reasoning on getting the 3gb version over the 1gb one...how much did it come up to??? Because if it made over $1400, you were better off with an Envy 17 3Dor any comparable sager with a better card...

 

I'd expect a certain performance boost of the 555 over the 550, but I haven't seen any benches so far.

555m has 144 cuda cores vs 96 on the 550m and also the memory bus is faster. I guess with a little overclock the 555m isn't that bad.

Both cards have DDR3 RAM, so the bigger memory bandwith of the 555m will be useful imo.

 

The 3GB memory has to be a typo, not even desktop cards have that much memory.

*Edit:

 

the gt555m is the same chip as the gt 445m that was offered in the xps17 pre refresh, its actually better than the abused gt 425m gt 435m gt 525m gt 540m and gt 550m, which are the same chip overclocked again and again.

you guys are right the 3g and 1g wont offer him no improvements, since the card wont benefit due to lower power of the processor. Now if you were talking about 1920*1080 and higher with more powerful processor like the gtx 570 and 6900 desktop version you were going to see the difference, outside that, just a market gimmick

 

I have extra to spare, just want to make sure its worthwhile... Id rather spend the 150 and upgrade something to something better a year or two from now... rather than spend the 150 more now and not really see much improvement.

The entire system is only around 950. I think he is pretty nieve and just figures it is a huge upgrade because it says "3GB". He basically wants me to not get a Blue ray player and pay extra to get this card.

I feel like 150 extra for that card is alot, considering i could improve other stuff like processor and ram for that much.

 

if gaming is a priority the gpu upgrade is going to make more sense.

 

interesting, thank you. The processor is
"2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM processor 2.00 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz [Included in Price]"

I figured it wouldn't provide meaningful improvements... especially since i mainly play SC2.

Would it be safe to say that if i wanted to have significant improvement i would just have to go up a tier in price... say to the 1300-1500 range?

 

processors have a lesser improvement in game than most people think, and since this is a poor card to fit in a 17'', you are going to be first gpu strained than cpu strained

 

I understand good to know. In your previous post you made it sound like the 150$ upgrade that is offered for this system is not worth it and a market gimmick. your suggestion would be to pass on it?

 

sorry, might not have worded it right, it is worthy it, but not because of the added memory, but because of the better processor in it.

 

K, thanks so much for the help i really appreciate it. Thanks for helping noobers like me all.

 

no worries, I would actually up and go for the m17x r3 coupled with a 6970.

I dont game much either, but I like to keep my machines working for a long time, and the more power and added upgrade ability I would go for that, or just go and splurge for the sager/clevo if the looks are in the way (the weight of is about the same as far as I remember, might be wrong though)

 

The 4GB Sapphire 6990 wants to talk to you.

 

not to mention the asus lambo series with the same amount of memory with a gtx 460m

 

Which "only" really have access to 2GB (each core has a duplicate copy).

Whichever way you look at it 3GB is massivly stupid. 1.5GB would have been questionable.

 

Not if you are running a multi-monitor setup.

 

so higher res more strain on the laptop gpu, which is never intended to go pass, basic enthusiast level, meaning nothing higher than full hd allowed, yeah... it wont make any sense.

if you are running a xfire 6970 with 3 monitors, then great have more memory, if not, I hardly see the added benefit

 

By the time you are running over 1GB of textures back and forth the memory bus will be screaming bloody murder.

I'm sorry but to get to 2FPS from 1FPS when running at 5760x1080 is not worth the cost.

Going with even 756mb in the GDDR5 version would have created MUCH better performance.

 

Totally agree, if you are looking for gaming at high resolution, I would go too with a GTX card.
Mine 445M GT has almost the same power of the 555M (which from what I have read in the Dell threads) is just a 445M renamed 555M with a little overclock.
I can play any games with 1600x900 resolution with no problem at all (I am not really a gamer) it's very smooth, so far the performance to me, is more than enough!
But again if you are looking for a gaming raw power card, keep in mind that the serie 500M is in the mid-range section of Nvidia graphic cards.

 

There will be highend 500m cards. It's the second number that indicated performance. If the second number is a 6 or higher it is highend eg. gtx 560m.

 

True, but that will be 560 gt "X" were X stand for Extreme, or better high end cards, and not only 555 "GT", am I right?
We can see the comparison in the Nvidia website, the middle part in the chart are the discrete GPU:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_family.html

 

Yes, but even without the 'X' they are still labeled higher numerically. Always the first number is the generation and the next two digits the hierarchy (both Ati and Nvidia). From the chart (Notebook) it seems these 5xx series is very new because there are still no high-end cards.

 

Yes, they are brand new, released the beginning of this 2011, specially for the Sandybridge CPU.

 

the released cards cards from 500m series are all rebrands, including the gtx 560m, since we dont have any info on the gtx 570m nor the gtx 580m, they are still the same

 

So, it means that my 445M is the same 555M, right?

 

This 3 GB probably is 1GB dedicated and 2GB of Shared RAM... they usd to do this trick long ago but its seems it back in fashion.

 

yes thats right

I always found that to be stupid, but since these nvidia cards use DDR3, the shared memory will have the same speed.

But I still dont think that is the case, since the afore mentioned asus lamborghini g73 used a 3g vram gtx460m. Aside that its useless

 

I agree the 3GB version is useless and idiotic (pure gimmick).
It won't make a difference in FPS one way or another.
I'd go with the 1GB version, or scrap this offer and find a better gpu for your money (which is certainly possible).

 

So, when the card would utilized the 2GB shared? what does it means? If I will upgrade my laptop to 16GB of ram, would it make any difference in performance?
I apologize for the too many questions, I just would like to know what I need my 2GB shared memory for..

 

if yours share, you will use when the game needs it, its automatic. The amount of memory used by the game is defined by the code it was written with, if it is a 32bit game then it will only address 3.25g

 

Is it useful only for games or for any applications?

 

Woah woah.

DDR3 system memory != DDR3 graphics memory.

The link tends to be 128bit (dual channel) and is already heavily used by the rest of the system. Its setup for lower speed but lower latency operation.

Take my system for example.

System ram = 128bit 533mhz 5-5-5-15 ram
Graphics ram = 12bit 1100mhz (probably running around cas 10 or the like)

 

He is completely right forgot about it, disregard the comment about DDR3 are always ==

 

The GTX 560M is GF116, thus it's not a simple rebrand.

GTX 570M and 580M will be GF114.

GTX 570M = 336 shaders, 580M = 384

 

humm... interesting i thought it was a simple overclock rebrand... the others I had no idea, as I said

 

Hi. Have you bought this pc yet? With wich specifications? I am going to buy this my self. Not sure that i need to upgrade something.. Just going to play cod bo, games like that and photoshop, itunes etc.

Thanks for answers

 

Please see this link.

GTX 460 2GB vs 1GB vs 768MB

and......

G-quit

 

Oh yeah, I'm definitely bookmarking that one.

 

Excellent find. +1

Just to quote the summary:

"The above graphs summarize the overall relative performance in the titles tested today. However the actual benefit of 768MB vs 1GB version is more than what the graphs reflect since they do not take into account the settings where 768MB were not benchmarked. In HAWX and Dirt 2, applying 8XAA resulted in painful menu slowdowns but the 1GB and 2GB versions handled it without any hiccups. Similarly, Far Cry 2 was extremely choppy with 8XAA applied with 768MB GTX 460. Stalker: Clear sky was also unplayable due to the low frame buffer.

1GB vs 2GB is tricky. Honestly speaking, the gains are minimal at best. In some rare titles such as Stalker: Call of pripyat a sizeable 16% FPS gain was seen. Other titles also displayed some measurable gains but they weren't enough to significantly improve game play experience. It depends on what you intend to do with these cards. Benchmarking wise, 2GB is still superior over 1GB but from a gameplay point of view the benefits are hardly noticeable. But then again, this should be expected from cards that are fairly "low end" to begin with."

 

Point being:
High end gpu's (contemporary ones) can benefit from 1GB of DDR5 for example and 256bit bus.
But (current) mid-range gpu's going over 512Mb (or possibly 768Mb) is simply stupid.
It's a waste of resources to put in 3GB onto a mid-range gpu when it will come nowhere near to utilizing it.
And the company could have seen far more satisfied customers had they placed 1GB of say DDR5 and upped the bus instead for the same cost (which would probably result a decent increase in performance for the invested cost).
THEN they can justify the higher price tags.

 

I think 1GB of ram is sensible, 1.5GB on a card that has to be 756MB or 1.5GB is also understandable and there will be cases where it helps.

I'm getting hold of a 6770M card so it should be interesting.

 

Good luck with that one. If it works, would you mind helping us lay the 6770M vs GT 555M debate to bed?

So far, it's been all talk and no benchmarks.

 

Sure, though it will be early next week when i get it.

 

What happens if the card is not equipped with right 'right amount of memory'? For example, if this particular card came with 2gb.

 

The useless memory just won't be used, especially true, since the Clevo GT 555M is only 128-bit DDR3.

 

Double post sorry, please delete.

 

Yummy!

Also if the card has too little memory then it has to dip into shared (system) memory which totally kills performance.

If you are talking about an uneven amount of ram, say 2GB of a 192bit card then some of the ram is only going to have 64bits of bandwidth.

You have 1.5 even striped along the 3 64bit channels (much like raid 0)

Then the last 512mb is sitting on one or two chips that are larger than the others and when that is accessed much like asynchronous system ram (6GB dual channel (2GB + 4GB) then it only gets the bandwidth of those chips/chip.

You can use clever management techniques but ultimately you are loosing bandwidth when you most need it (when you are using all your memory)

We saw this recently with the desktop 550Ti and it did not help it much.

 

I am assuming that the OP is looking at a Dell XPS or Alienware system.

If it is an XPS 17 system, then the video card selection is tied with the display (3D or not) and the amount of maximum system memory.

According to Dell, the 3MB video card and a 3D Full HD display will give you a motherboard with 4 SoDIMM slots, where the 1MB card with 3D will only give you 2 SoDIMM slots. If you get the non-3d Full HD display, no matter which 555M card you get (3GB or 1GB) you only get 2 SoDIMM slots (8GB max).

I ordered an XPS 17 and got the card with the 3GB RAM because I wanted to be able to add more system memory (up to 16GB 1333)

I am not sure of the reasoning behind this, maybe those of you with more notebook benchmark knowledge can tell me why they are configuring things like this, but that is what Dell is doing.

In Summary:

• Systems shipped with only 1GB Video RAM will have 2 DIMM sockets.
• Systems shipped with 3GB video RAM (Nvidia GT 450M) will only have 2 DIMM as it has a non 3D video solution.
• Systems shipped with 3D 3GB Video RAM have 4 DIMM sockets.